The Government has launched what it is calling one of the world’s most generous trading schemes with developing countries explaining that it will help UK businesses access hundreds of products from around the globe at lower prices, reducing costs for UK consumers.
Introducing the new Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS), International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan explained that it will extend tariff cuts to hundreds of more products exported from developing countries, going further than the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) of which the UK had been a member before Brexit.
Given that thousands of products from developing countries can already be exported to the UK duty free, this will mean that 99% of goods imported from Africa under the scheme will enter the UK duty free.
A wide variety of products — from clothes and shoes to foods that are not widely produced in the UK such as olive oil and tomatoes — will benefit from lower or zero tariffs, meaning that British businesses can benefit from more than £750 million per year of reduced import costs.
The DCTS covers 65 countries across Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas including some of the poorest countries in the world.
The scheme also simplifies complex trade rules such as rules of origin — the rules dictating what proportion of a product must be made in its country of origin. This makes it easier for small businesses to export, encouraging developing countries to play a larger role in the global trade community.
“UK businesses can look forward to less red-tape and lower costs, incentivising firms to import goods from developing countries,” Ms Trevelyan concluded.
